If you catch the virus behind COVID-19 and you’re at a high risk of serious illness, there’s one major tool in a physician’s arsenal to keep you out of hospital: Paxlovid.

Pfizer’s antiviral drug was hailed as life-saving when it burst onto the scene midway through the pandemic. Clinical trials, conducted on people who’d never been vaccinated, showed it protected those vulnerable individuals from becoming dangerously sick, with a nearly 90 per cent reduction in the risk of hospitalization and death.

But many clinicians agree the COVID landscape has shifted dramatically since early January 2022 when the drug was approved for use in Canada. Now, the vast majority of Canadians have more protection from serious illness through prior vaccination, infection or both.